I am an Australian voter.

First we are greeted by the image of Joe Hockey and Mathias Corman kicking back looking very pleased with themselves as they sucked on fat cigars. The imagery is wrong on so many levels – a satisfaction enjoyed by the rich after a fine meal or a more intimate dalliance, which leads inevitably to ‘we just got screwed’. It sends the wrong health message to kids and the wrong message to workers who I thought couldn’t smoke within a certain distance of a building.

Then we see Hockey dancing around his office. I can certainly understand him being happy to see his family but one would have thought that he may not be in a ‘dancing’ mood considering what he was about to deliver. If he was expressing relief that the process was over, I think that may have been premature. This is going to be a hard sell and…

We are all frustrated at the lack of scrutiny afforded to our politicians, and in particular to the government’s repeated claims that we have a debt crisis. Why is it, however, that there don’t appear to be any journalists in the mainstream media who have the gumption to simply ask; “Prove it”? One of our readers has circulated a letter to the independent media sites (The AIMN included) asking that we continue to pose the questions that the mainstream media avoids. The reader, James Fitzgerald, makes a lot of sense.

I sent this to the Guardian Australia this morning, and to the ALP and the Greens as well as New Matilda, The Hoopla and Crikey in the hope that someone (or everyone) runs with it. The journalism sentiments apply to you, too:

Self-harm or State-inflicted-harm. What role does language play in the displacement of one and the other? Who gains from this?

In this revealing article, poet Janet Galbraith* tells of her own experiences and identifies wider causes and culprits.

A while ago I started writing an article about the notion of what is often called ‘self-harm’. I had felt saturated by this word and angry about the ways in which it is used to refer to a whole range of experiences. But I found it really hard to write. I wanted to research and come up with something that would articulate what I was feeling in a way that would be understood to have some gravitas. In the end, I did not finish it. But tonight, after speaking over the past days with people in detention who are in such dire situations that so-called ‘self-harm’ feels inevitable…

March in March saw tens of thousands of disenchanted voters take to the streets across Australia in protest against the Abbott Government. But it was just the beginning. After the marchers had dispersed, the anger at the government still simmered.

Now the people are marching again.

The AIMN has been contacted by the organisers to promote the next instalment: March in May.

This we are more than happy to do.

After March in March many in the mainstream media ridiculed it as nothing more than a rabble. It was just a group of lefties, they mused, coming along for the walk and waving a placard.

March in May will have a clear message (see list below). The media will know why people are marching. It would be foolhardy to ignore it.

There is much inequality in the world, writes Peter Barnes, and much of it is due to the colour of your skin, or your gender, or your socio-economic status. For those who don’t suffer from inequality, there comes a sense of entitlement.

One of the great things about Australia is that any child can grow up to be Prime Minister.

The destruction of the Maules Creek community by Big Coal is enormous. Kate O’Callaghan writes about the level of this impact and how the community is fighting back.

Last Saturday, four members of a group of 13 medical professionals and students were arrested after joining an anti-mining protest at Maules Creek. Spending more than four hours chained together at the site, the so-called Medics Against Coal felt compelled to act. In March, 92 year old World War II digger Bill Ryan was one of 60 people arrested at the blockade, disrupting construction by sitting on machinery. According to Bill, “I’ll continue to protest for as long as I can walk.”What’s going on at Maules Creek that’s driving so many everyday Australians to put their bodies on the line?

Maules Creek is a picturesque agricultural community, situated north west of Tamworth in the agricultural belt of NSW. It lies…